The Observatorium – ECCS’10 PDF and Slides

The Observatorium – The structure of news: topic monitoring in online media with mutual information – David M.S. Rodrigues, In European Conference on Complex Systems 2010 – ECCS10; Lisbon 2010, Sept. 13-17 Setptember 2010. Slides

Abstract:Large, real time text classification systems are becoming a popular topic. We present a method for automatically extracting correlated news from online media using a dynamic similarity graph and use the variation of information as a measure to identify topics, lifespan and key terms. The presented method has the advantage of requiring no human intervention or training and having no pre-assigned categories because they emerge from the dynamics of the generated network.

If you could not attend my talk at ECCS’10 and still are a bit curious, here are paper and slides for the talk.

Post ECCS Conference round up.

ECCS’10 finished last Friday. It’s a strange thing to put up such a big event for complex systems studies.

The first thing one notices after everybody else has left is that you already miss the conference. The frenetic rhythm of the conference impregnated your body in such a way that it feels a bit strange not having it around. The second thing I’d like to say is about how great the participants were (Even when we put them into buses and to the crazy Lisbon traffic.). The success of this conference wouldn’t even be half of what it was if the participants weren’t so great. Finally, It was very nice to see young students preparing the future of complex systems studies. They (We) met Friday and had a great brainstorm that, in my view, will percolate and will be very important in the context of Complex Systems Studies for the next years in the World. For now there’s a website hosted at the Complex Systems Society with some details. It will be updated regularly in the future by the CSS members. So if you aren’t a CSS member yet, please do join and participate in the discussion of the future of Complexity Sciences.

ECCS10 – The tools to prepare and run a conference

Now that ECCS’10 preparation is almost finished and we approach Monday morning, I find myself wondering about the tools we used to prepare this conference. I can say the workload would have been much higher if we didn’t have some online colaboration tools. Here is the list of what I think made a significant contribution to success.

  • Dropbox. Dropbox by itself made the life of the team much easier. There was always someone editing some file, sharing some logo of a sponser or archiving emails from participants. I think I’ve seen the Growl notification from Dropbox more than the times I breathed.
  • Google Docs. The capabilities of simultaneous editing made this another power presence on our daily routine pre-ECCS’10.
  • Skype. Meetings made easy. Even during summer when part of the team was three thousand kilometers away we had a way to get work done.
  • On a smaller scale, Inkscape, Textmate and Photoshop where very important.
  • A final note to Drupal. It’s been perfect for what we needed with the versatility to add some other things. Just the right platform.
  • A negative note: The Myreview system for the submission process. IT SUCKS! BIGTIME! Someone needs to develop something that doesn’t require a course in rocket science to work with. Myreview needs an easy to use interface for admins, chairs and reviewers. A general overhaul is needed.

Evolução, Ecologia e Comportamento

É muito interessante verificar como no twitter as comunidades se auto-organizam em torno de determinados temas. Uma vez por semana dou uma vista de olhos aos meus novos followers para verificar aqueles que penso serem interessantes de seguir. O vídeo acima foi descoberto através de um dos meus followers mais recentes: Dominic Wilson e do seu blog Adventures in Machine Intelligence and Intelligent Machines.

Trata-se do 1º vídeo de um curso do professor Stephen C. Stearns sobre os princípios de evolução, ecologia e comportamento dos cursos abertos de Yale. A não perder.

Redes Sociais: Facebook vs Second Life

A PC World tem um artigo sobre o Facebook e apesar da rede social até se sair bem do artigo, não posso deixar de ler com consternação que as pessoas parecem estar a transformar-se numa espécie de Zoombies. A autora fala, e bem, de que se trata de uma actividade passiva, a de passar o tempo a ver os updates dos outros em vez de interagir directamente. O facebook é uma espécie de ZoombieLand. Talvez por isso mesmo tenha tanto sucesso e talvez por aí se explique o falhanço, digo menor sucesso, do Second Life. O Second Life exige das pessoas uma participação muito mais activa para a formação da rede social. Exige actividade. Por outro lado o Zombie(Face)Book não exige tal e uma actividade passiva é ainda assim recompensada pelo voyarismo existente em cada um de nós. Talvez a melhor conclusão deste tipo de serviço seja a de que o seu próprio sucesso é conseguido transpondo a ideia da novela de TV para a internet. O utilizador não tem necessariamente que se mexer para fazer parte e se sentir integrado nessa rede social, basta estar ali, de comando na mão, a ver a menina pobre apaixonada pelo menino rico. É tão simples!

NetLogo Bag of Tricks

O Netlogo é uma das ferramentas mais utilizadas para prototipagem de modelos e simulações multi-agente. A linguagem simples (baseada no Logo) e os conceitos próximos do utilizador (em vez de próximos do programador) fazem desta ferramenta um sucesso junto de muitos cientistas sociais. Algo que noutras linguagens pode demorar 2 dias a programar aqui consegue-se fazer em algumas horas apenas. Utilizei-o em para programar algumas das simulações que utilizei em alguns artigos.

Apesar de muito simples, o Netlogo permite pôr as tartarugas a fazer coisas muito avançadas. Veja-se o caso dos sistemas de informação geográfica do site NetLogo Bag of Tricks!

Desafio ECCS’10

FGreil_Suggestion03

São 500 Euros + entrada na próxima conferência (2011) + inscrição na CSS +… 5 dias muito bem passados em Setembro deste ano… e melhor ainda: são 2 meses para preparar a submissão! Estou a falar do Challenge ECCS’10!

QCN WMGHR TYGO B GFPZYILVS

History of Social Network Analysis (some references)

Social Networks - Twitter Conversations(from a discussion thread in SOCNET)

1970’s

Mullins, Nicholas. Theories and Theory Groups in Contemporary American Sociology. New York: Harper and Row, 1973. Key chapter pre INSNA on early social network analysis.Wolfe, Alvin W. 1978. The Rise of Network Thinking in Anthropology. Social Networks 1(1978):53-64.

1980’s

Barry Wellman, “Structural Analysis: From Method and Metaphor to Theory and Substance.” Pp. 19-61 in Social Structures: A Network Approach, edited by Barry Wellman and S.D. Berkowitz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Winship, C. (1988). Thoughts about roles and relations: An old document revisited. Social Networks, 10, 209-231. (insights into the early development of blockmodelling)

1990’s

John Scott (1991) – Social Network analysis: A handbook (2002) – chapter 2Freeman, Linton C. (1992). Social Networks and the Structure Experiment. In L. C. Freeman, D. R. White & A. K. Romney (Eds.), Research Methods in Social Network Analysis (pp. 11-40). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Hummon, N. and K. Carley. 1993. Social networks as normal science. Social Networks 15:71-106Wasserman and Faust (1994). Social Network Analysis – Methods and Applications. Cambridge University PressJ.C. Johnson. “Anthropological Contributions to the Study of Social Networks: A Review.” In (S. Wasserman and J. Galaskiowicz, eds.) Advances in Social Network Analysis: Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Sage: Newbury Park. 1994.Linton Freeman and Barry Wellman. “A Note on the Ancestral Toronto Home of Social Network Analysis.” Connections 18 (November, 1996): 15-19.Frank, K. A. (1998). “The Social Context of Schooling: Quantitative Methods” Review of Research in Education, Vol, 23, chapter 5, pages 171-216.

2000’s

Barry Wellman, “Networking Network Analysts: How INSNA (the International Network for Social Network Analysis) Came to Be.” Connections 23, 1 (Summer, 2000): 20-31Azarian, Reza. The General Sociology of Harrison White. Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2003.Linton C. Freeman (2004) “The Development of Social Network Analysis: A Study in the Sociology of Science” – http://www.amazon.com/Development-Social-Network-Analysis-Sociology/dp/1594577145/ref=pd_sim_b_5C. Reza Azarian – The General Sociology of Harrison C. White: Chaos and Order in Networks Palgrave Macmillan (April 13, 2006) http://www.amazon.com/General-Sociology-Harrison-C-White/dp/1403944342

2010’s

“The Network Revolution” chapter in Rainie-Wellman Networked: The New Social Operating System.  MIT Press, 2011.

Charles Kadushin : Making Connections: Network Theory, Concepts and Findings, Oxford University Press, will be out in 2011.

(This can be expanded by you, just email me at spp at thisISforSPAM sixhat.net or use the contact form)